Focke Wulf rammer and Spitfire rammer - looking for info about

AF

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At unicraftmodels site is in distant future releases pic of Focke - wulf rammer project: http://www.geocities.com/unicraftmodels/fut/futgerm/futgerm.htm

and side draw of spitfire rammer project:
http://www.geocities.com/unicraftmodels/fut/futother/futother.htm

Does anybody 3 side draw and technical data of these planes?? (history welcomed too)
Thanks for help

AF
 
The future resin kits in which you are interested are based on two highly speculative drawings that I made some years ago for my publication Reichdreams #18 and UNKNOWN! #2.

- The "Focke Wulf rammjäger" is a Luft '46 project based on the description (text only) published by the French historian Paul Malmassari in "Le Fanatique de l'Aviation", September 2000. Although this forum is not the right place for this type of material, please find attached a copy of my drawing with the only purpose of clarifying that it is just speculative and probably inaccurate.

- The "Spitfire Rammer" is based on an article by Michael J.F. Bowyer, published in AIRFIX ANNUAL MAGAZINE in 1978. It contains a fascinating drawing by David Dean that I used to extrapolate the attached 3D speculative scale drawing. I believe the subject may be discussed in this forum. Although the ramming device is based in the patent by a British inventor, its manufacturing was seriously considered by the firm Phillips & Powis (after Miles Aircraft) in May 1939.
Unfortunately I could not obtain any new information on the subject. The patent number mentioned in the article (No. 8566) is wrong and belongs to an industrial process to elaborate food.

Does anyone have additional data on the invention by Mr. I Samah?
 

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Dear Justo,

despite your comment about this Fw project is highly speculative.... Is possible which this fighter would be carried by a mother aircraft as a Mistel configuration ( for example, atop of an Arado Ar 234 C, like a V-1 ) instead a parasite configuration, under a He 111?

I'm asking this keeping in mind the canopy configuration.

Also, I have read about this Focke Wulf ram-fighter which it could be equipped with an ejection seat....what do you think about this?

Regards,

Marcelo.
 
Oki - your question is for Justo - but my opinion: this plane is similar to Fiesler Fi 103 / V 1. V 1 was launched from He 111 from same place as you can find at pic from Justo. For piloted variant Reinchenberg IV was planed same launch procedure (as you can read here: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Elevon/baugher_other/fi103.html or here : http://greyfalcon.us/Fiesler%20Fi.htm
or here: http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/V1/info/info.php ) so i think canopy configuration is not problem.
But i think Ar 234 C is more probable for operational duty, because He 111 was very easy target for escort fighters (but for test flights it was good platform).
 
Quite a similarity to the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, I think.
Just "Form follows function", or a kind of reverse engineering, as
with the Nakajima Kikka and the Me 262 ?
(drawings from Justo and from Kenneth Munson "Bomber 1939-45")
 

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Thanks for your comment, AF.

Good your point about comparision between Fi 103 R and Fw rammer project. But I was wondering that because I kept in mind the canopy of the Fi 103 R was protected in some way by the pulsejet....

Just a thought.:)

Regards,

Marcelo.
 
Jemiba said:
Quite a similarity to the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, I think.
Just "Form follows function", or a kind of reverse engineering, as
with the Nakajima Kikka and the Me 262 ?

It looks like a case of convergent evolution like in the canard fighters Stefanutti S.A.I. S.S.4,Kyushu J7W1 and Curtiss XP.55.
Otherwise, in the case of the Fieseler Fi 103 "Reichenberg IV" versus Kawanishi 'Baika' Model 1 it is possible to talk of reverse engineering.
 

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Marcelo said:
Is possible which this fighter would be carried by a mother aircraft as a Mistel configuration ( for example, atop of an Arado Ar 234 C, like a V-1 ) instead a parasite configuration, under a He 111?

I'm asking this keeping in mind the canopy configuration.

Also, I have read about this Focke Wulf ram-fighter which it could be equipped with an ejection seat....what do you think about this?

Theoretically the "Rammjäger" could have been launched by the same means than the standard V-1, except the 17G steam catapult. For your model, I would recommend to use the "Huckepack" system over an Arado Ar 234 C that is the most eyecatching.

- The launch system from a Heinkel 111 consisted of a triangular pod (please see the red circle) designed to avoid the V-1 hitting the wing of the motherplane after the launch.
- The canopy was that of a Fw 190 A-8/R8, very strong and with lateral armoured glass plates.

- The smallest ejector seat available in Germany was the "Schleudersitz Heinkel-Kartusche", 110 cm high, and could not be installed in the "Ramjäger" without altering its basic airframe.
 

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That was my point, Justo!

You made clear my main worry about your drawing.

"....The launch system from a Heinkel 111 consisted of a triangular pod (please see the red circle) designed to avoid the V-1 hitting the wing of the motherplane after the launch...."

Anyway, I know it was a suicide aircraft.... so I think the pilot should be worried about the mission instead the his security after the launch...

Thank you again!

Marcelo.
 
Very interesting. Flying rams seemingly offer high probability of scoring a kill per successful interception but low probability of repeated kills per mission. They also stand a good chance of turning into suicide aircraft, whether or not they were intended as such.
I think Shamah originally envisaged his rammer as non-suicide but basically expendable, with the pilot being ejected by the shock of impact, so the maximum number of kills per rammer (never mind per mission) was one. Assuming greatest closing speed (and impact) in head-on collisions, a Shamah ram pilot who aimed to maximise probability of kill risked getting ejected into the target. No wonder Soviet propaganda called ramming "The weapon of heroes". I think all Soviet Taran fighters carried guns and weren't expendable by design, (although often expended in practice).
See Wikipedia: 'Ramming', http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramming
or James T. Quinlivan, 'The Taran: Ramming in the Soviet Air Force', RAND Paper P-7192, 1986.
As in Justo's splendid reconstruction, armouring the wing leading edges of a Spitfire would seriously reduce opportunities for mounting guns therein, (never mind what armour would do to the weight). The cost-per-fighter would be alarmingly close to the cost of the target, reducing the value of even successful interceptions. (Trading an Ohka for an aircraft-carrier might be cost-effective; trading an armoured Spitfire for a Ju 88 isn't. The Northrop XP-79B Flying Ram was designed to survive up to ten rammings per mission but this seems optimistic.) Michael Bowyer's Airfix Magazine annual article says worries were expressed even in 1939 about achieving zero distance between interceptor and target in the face of return fire. Rammers would present progressively bigger and better targets for any enemy gunners right up until the moment of collision. Guns / missiles allow safer interceptions - no standoff capability with rammers – and do better at tracking manoeuvring targets.
Japanese pilots of course sometimes rammed targets impromptu but I don't know of a well-confirmed proposal for a Japanese (suicide or otherwise) interceptor. Some sources describe a proposed Mizuno Shinryu II kamikaze interceptor variant, but this is disputed.
 

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having gone through every combination of words I can think of on patent search for the Miles (Phillips & Powis) Shamah 'rammer' I stil cant seem to find the paper relation to the submission ? approaches made to the Miles archive at Berkshire Museum elicit a copy of the forementioned Airfix annual article too :( anyone else out there have any luck ?

cheers, joe
 
Hi folks,
I think the article on the Shamah ramming Spitifre and the Miles (Phillips & Powis) rammer from 'Airfix Magazine Annual' kindly referenced by Justo above is reprinted in the Museum of Berkshire Aviation Newsletter, Winter 2007: museumofberkshireaviation.co.uk/pdf/win07.pdf

Amongst other things, it says this:

Official interest in the idea increased a few months before the war began. Previously, there had been discussion of the ramming concept at the Air Ministry.
A British inventor, Mr. I. Shamah, proposed such a craft to Phillips & Powis Aircraft Ltd of Reading at the start of May 1939. Where design theory was concerned he had done his homework, and devised a form of pilot ejection seat, an item untested in Britain until 1944.

The cockpit would be sited well aft. The pilot's controls would have been strangely placed to one side of the cockpit. His seat was to be built on a strong frame held on runners located on bars extended to the front of the aircraft, probably the engine firewall. In the fuselage side was an easily removable panel which could be opened by a cable release, or which flew open as the pilot's seat shot forward. A seat lock would be released by the pilot prior to action. Forward normal momentum would retain the seat in place, but collision with another aircraft would immediately hurl it forward, ejecting the pilot to safety through, it was envisaged, the open hatch. A small spring fitted into the upright portion of the seat would give the pilot additional momentum, although it could cause him serious injury. The pilot's parachute would open automatically or by hand, and he would fall to safety whilst his specialised aircraft rammed the enemy.


I've searched for the patent (seemingly wrongly numbered as No. 8566) referenced in the article and found a few aviation patents cited to Israel Shamah, but not alas anything like a ramming fighter design.
Thanks, 'Wingknut'
 
Justo Miranda said:
- The "Focke Wulf rammjäger" is a Luft '46 project based on the description (text only) published by the French historian Paul Malmassari in "Le Fanatique de l'Aviation", September 2000.

Time to lay that 17-year-old French magazine article to rest with the original source document (which wasn't reproduced with the article, I can tell you). It mentions an attached sketch, but as Paul M no doubt also found - it was missing.
 

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Interesting to see that idea being looked at by the British pre-war, it really is a tactic of desperation, all the historic examples I've seen (Russian, Japanese) fall into that category.

Later: Does anyone know if the Spitfire rammer has been modeled for World of Warplanes or some other flight simulator?
 
I guess that was Israel Shamah, about whom I can find nothing. The patent number quoted in the article is bogus, GB patents were in six figures by this time, and what aspect would he have been trying to patent?
In times of war a shed-load of ideas are proposed, generally they are glanced at and discretely ignored. I would place this one in that category.
 
Shamah's Aviator's Certificate
 

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So, there is some official documentation of the Spitfire rammer. Does that contain any estimated performance details?
 
CJGibson said:
Oddest-looking Spitfire I've ever seen.

Chris

This shows all the hallmarks of a story that has been somewhat embellished over the years. There is no sign of the alleged patent for the rammer and none of the other patents in the name of Israel Shamah make any mention of Powis/Miles ; mostly these are unrelated to aircraft. So this is either a different man or Shamah did not work for Miles, take your pick. Apart from the report of him obtaining his aviator's certificate there is no mention of him in Flight, so if he was in the aircraft design business he had a low profile. The rammer design in the document posted by Chris shows no connection with the Spitfire and why would Miles have chosen to base the rammer on an aircraft that would have required extensive redesign and modification and for which they were not even a subcontractor? Too many questions.
 
Certainly doesn't look like a Spitfire in the side profile, though without any wing details its hard to totally exclude that possibility.

It doesn't seem to make much practical sense given the manpower resources to build the Spitfire which was not easily mass producible in those early years and strategic materials tied up in the all-metal airframe. A rammer Hurricane might make more sense from an economical point of view. I get the feeling like all good embellished yarns, someone has seen a sleek monoplane with a long nose and thought "Bingo! A Spitfire!"
 
Hood said:
I get the feeling like all good embellished yarns, someone has seen a sleek monoplane with a long nose and thought "Bingo! A Spitfire!"

Absolutely! The idea that 'something' was to be based on a Spitfire only comes about with Dean's artwork in the Airfix article. As to the original idea by Shamah it is a case of '"what you see is what there is" (courtesy of Chris): just a concept, nothing more.

edit: Dean's artwork doesn't even look like a Spitfire and is not captioned as being one. Justo, any comment?
 
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